1. Field of the Invention
The present invention belongs to the field of enterprises dedicated to the creation of proper elements for the inhumation of corpses and particularly it refers to a structure of drawers advantageously substituting the crypts, tombs or conventional graves eliminating through its use the problems of space, health, air contamination and aesthetics that have affected conventional burial systems.
2. Description of the Prior Art
In ancient pagan times men placed their graves in the open air and in places as visible as roads, that started at the city gates. Christians placed the graves back to the walls of the catacombes, churches and cloisters or placed them in the middle of the chaples or in the crossing of the aisles in the churches.
Even before the time of the above mentioned graves, the Egyptian Pyramids were known and the closed chambers with conic domes of the Greeks that are found in Micenas and Orcomenes.
A variety of the mural graves are the double or superimposed graves that form a single decorative unity, as those to be seen in the chapel of the New Kings, in the Cathedral of Toledo.
The mural graves had their prime within the Middle Ages and dwindled afterwards, due to the ecclesiastic position that considered as burial places exlusively the communal cementeries, whereas the mural graves were reserved to members of the religious orders.
A difference must be established between the concepts relating to the invention of the grave and the hipogeo, because whilst the grave has a commemorative finality and projects the idea of externalizing the memory of the deseased through monuments, the hipogeo has as ultimate destiny the perfection of a concavity in the earth provided by nature, found appropriate by men to bury his dead.
From an architectural point of view, the equivalents of the tombs, graves and mausoleums, are the crypts that form together with the above mentioned graves of the Middle Ages, the real background of the present invention, because while the grave is really a burial cavity effected in the wall, the crypt is an underground cavity, the origin of which is found in the Roman catacombs that, with the evolution of the religious cult, became real underground churches.
Another antecedent to be mentioned is the type of underground grave, typical of the Chaldeans and which is an oblong construction made of superimposed bricks that contain a closed funeral chamber with a vault made of rows and with the inclined walls resting in it. The general dimentions of this type of graves were of 1.52 meters of height by 1.89 meters of width and 2.13 meters of length. Its side walls closed this kind of gallery in which we note the absence of doors, possibly to avoid the entrance of water and dust.
Within the modern era, systems to inhume corpses are known which are characterized by the employment of drawers that use as an entrance, a side opening made on its longer sides, found in the depth of the earth.
Usage of surface drawers is known, having as an entrance an opening made in either of the shorter side zones of said drawers.
Up to the date in which this study was requested to be prepared, no system whatsoever of inhumation is known to employ superimposed drawers upwards and sideways, with internal inclinations and with external drainage to eliminate organic residuals, thus avoiding air contamination.